from Collier’s, June 1913.

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Colt Python

S.P. Fjestad, the author and publisher of the Blue Book Of Gun Values, now in its 36th edition, in this month’s American Rifleman, discusses the current frenzy on the part of dealers and collectors to snap up out-of-print, post-WWII Colt Double-Action revolvers which is driving prices higher and higher to out-of-sight levels.

If they get any hotter, they’ll be on fire!” is the way one Colt collector put it after being asked what he thought about the current Colt “snake-gun” marketplace. Colt’s family of seven deadly serpents include the Python, Diamondback, Cobra, Anaconda, King Cobra, Boa and Viper. There haven’t been too many “lottery winners” during the last several years regarding major trademark collectible firearms, but Colt’s snake guns continue to pack potent venom for anyone who ventures too close to their poisonous attraction. …

Mint, original, 1950s standard-production Pythons with 6″ barrels, high polish, Royal bluing and matching-number boxes and paperwork that had an original $125 manufacturer’s suggested retail price are now selling in excess of $18,000.

Read the whole thing.

Fjestad fears that the party is going to come to an ugly end before very long, when the current tulip-craze for post-WWII Colt Double Action Revolvers exhausts itself as supplies emerge to satisfy all real existing demand. I think he’s right, and I even have personal difficulty in identifying with the enthusiasm of this group of collectors.

I once handled a Python, admired its rich blue finish, and its smooth Swiss-watch action. The price was reasonable back then, but I already owned a .357. My preference had always been for Smith & Wessons rather than Colts, and I thought it was kind of Mickey Mouse that Colt had a special production line to produce pistols that operated as nicely as the typical S&W.

What killed the deal for me was that vent rib. I knew perfectly well that a ventilated rib on a 6″ revolver served no practical purpose whatsoever, and I decided that I’d be embarrassed to appear in public carrying a revolver with a useless vent barrel. People would think I was the kind of dumbass who didn’t know any better and thought a vent barrel was cool. I just couldn’t bring myself to own one. I guess all that proves that theories can cost a fellow a whole lot of money.

Military Times: Colt’s prototypes for the Corps have a desert-color Cercoat finish, eliminating glare on the weapon and making it less identifiable at a distance…. [T]his model has a section of 1913 Picatinny rail under the barrel to mount accessories such as a light or laser aiming device. They also have more stainless steel internal components to reduce corrosion. They’re equipped with a tritium night sight made by Novak of Parkersburg, W.Va.

30 years after the US Armed Forces went to a 9mm Parabellum Beretta, the United States Marine Corps Special Operations Command (MARSOC) has re-adopted John Moses Browning’s original single-action, semi-automatic, magazine-fed, recoil-operated Model 1911 pistol chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge as its issue sidearm, to be produced (in what amounts to a typically-customized contemporary version) by the original manufacturer: Colt Manufacturing LLC of Hartford, Connecticut.

Stars and Stripes story

Why?

As “Col. Colt” puts it on the 1911 Forum:

Everything you need, nothing you don’t. The Colt 1911 has been stopping fights and saving it’s owners lives for 100 years now. And during most of that time it did it just fine dead, issue, box stock with 230gr. roundnosed jacketed Ball ammo! It built it’s “street rep” on it’s as issued form – think about that for a minute.

The American Soldier, Sailor or Airman never had any doubts that his issue handgun would work – or that it woud put his adversary on his back immediately if he did his part. It made it’s reputation from doing, not talk. From chasing Pancho Villa in the nineteen “teens, to the deadly trenches of WWI, to shooting down the Japanese Banzai charge in the dark on Edson’s Ridge on Guadalcanal, the American Fighting Man could count on his 1911 – and we still can. Korea, Vietnam, all the way up to the present day, nobody ever felt undergunned in the handgun department who carried the 1911.

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Steve the skeptic discusses the politics behind the choice:

The news that the USMC had adopted the Colt 1911 Rail Gun as the new M45 pistol generated a lot of controversy. People could not understand why the Marines would adopt a very generic 1911 pistol when more modern, lighter and higher capacity pistols were readily available. Fuel was added to the fire when Solider Systems broke the news that in military tests the Colt 1911 Rail Gun exhibited cracking after 12,000 rounds.